Category Archives: /dev/random

So after crunching some more numbers and reading the green peace green energy guide I decided to change electricity retailers. Based of my need for a high VFIT (see previous post ) it was a choice between AGL (current provider), Click Energy and Diamond Energy.

Power Saving Calculations

Ok so the savings it’s not completely fair on AGL $55 of that $70 saving is 100% green energy which I’m not longer buying. As click doesn’t offer it on their solar plan. but i can buy green energy from the a environmental trust for 4.2c/kWh and it’s a tax deduction.

Click saved me the most money has no contracts over AGLs 3 year killer and Diamonds 1 year one, it was also rated by green peace as middle range green. I’ve decided to move to click energy I’ll officially switch at my next meter read.

What about Gas well it’s going to switched later when click supports it. from twitter today:

If you where lucky enough to install your solar panels before 30 June 2012 then you have nothing to worry about your nsw government guaranteed to get 60c for those pre 28/10/2010 in the scheme or 20c for those later. I didn’t own my house before that date so I missed out so we’ll mainly be looking at VFIT voluntary feed in tariff.

So to safe you the research I’ve put it in a table below using Energy Made Easy Website to look up power companies avaliable in NSW.

*can’t confirm rate on company website need to ring for quote.
**Doesn’t offer certified green energy but does own green energy generators and no fossil fuel generators.

I export 3199.9 kWh/annually so at 8c it’s $255.99 and at the top rate of 10c/kWh it’s $319.99 so 10c give me an extra $64 per year. but that’s only a saving if the cost rate is the same.

There are other things to take into account when choosing a provide through, like the rates and discount for example click charge 27.39 c/kwh plus 7% discount 25.47 c/kwh which beat the discounted AGL rate of 26.44 c/kwh. Diamond energy with discount is ~26.56 c/kwh. daily service charge will also have to be factored in but it has less of an affect on the bill size. with click offering 78.10 c/day AGL 74.877 c/day and Diamond Energy 78.10 c/day.

I’m currently with AGL but I will be doing some further number crunching to work out if I can get enough savings out of click energy to justify me contract break fee that AGL will charge me if I leave.
I also dispprove on AGLs submission to the RET review so I’m not so willing to give them any more money.

Click energy doesn’t provide green power, this is a slight sticking point as purchasing green energy means not that my power comes from green sources but my money does. But that can be purchased seperatly to your energy bill and more directly to green providers so that might be an option.

this time last year we had the solar installed well by this time it was well on the roof … this date last year we had the meter replaced and the solar turned on.

The statistics:

kWh Imported 4295.3

kWh Exported 3199.9

kWh generated according to the inverter 4936

Fit Collected at 8c kWh $255.99

kWh not purchased or sold 1736.1

I’m currently on a flat rate of 29.084 c/kWh (note my rate has gone up since solar was installed) minus 10% discount plus 5.5 c /kWh for green energy = 31.94 c /kWh. So the amount not purchased or sold is what I saved by not buying 1736.1*31.94c = $554.51 + the money I got from Fit $255.99 so in a year it’s saved me ~$810.5.

Has the solar been a good investment no…the capital cost was around $8.5k so with the amount saved it’ll take 10 years to pay back. The main reason for this is that we export way too much and the fit is so low if we got paid what it costs us it would of saved us ~$1500 a year and only 5.5 years to pay back. Do I care if it was a solid investment not really.

If we look at how green it is if we take imported – exported (1095 kWh) that’s how much power I’ve used from other generators which for my area is black coal, but that has been offset by my green power money purchasing green power from wind and biogass. so does my house run emissions free when it comes to electricity according to an accountant yes, because every kWh of power I’ve used has been purchased from a green source but maybe not according to an engineer.

Other interesting notes on the power bill:

average kWh used per day including solar from April to may 2013 before purchasing the EV was 12.1 kwh

average kWh used per day including solar from July 2013 to April 2014 post purchasing the EV is 16.5 kwh

so the effect of owning an EV on our power bills is about 4.4 kwh per day $1.40 increased cost. Note: this would also include seasonal cost extras like summertime air con and winter time heating so I won’t have a clear picture until we 1 year of EV ownership.

So I decided to build a quad mainly the one designed by the diydrones.com people, there are 2 suppliers of the kit jdrones and udrones. one is based in Asia the other in the US.

I decided to be slack and buy the pre-soldered kit, I can solder and it’s not like it was anything hard like surface mount. Big NOTE when they say pre-soldered they don’t mean the entire kit has be soldered you still have to solder 24 bullet connectors and the power distribution board, and for some reason they give you the magnetometer attached by cable not soldered directly to a header on a board like they recommend.

What I forgot to buy is some headers: http://store.jdrones.com/product_p/conhead20angle.htm and http://store.jdrones.com/product_p/conhead20str.htm

Ok so this isn’t enough to make it fly and yes you’ve just spent nearly a AU$1000 you’ll also need to get a Battery, and a radio. For that I tried the hobbyking.com shop. Note: if it’s not in stock in the Australian warehouse delivery times seem a bit slow.Also LiPo battery’s can not be shipped by air, make sure you buy in Australia for those.

Lastly is the radio the most expensive single item after the kit. I’m trying to get my hand on this but apparently the queue is long and the might take months. why so popular you ask well it cost like $60. and something with that many channels cost normally around $200+ so If nothing ships soon I’m looking at buying one of these Futaba 7c and probably from the more local hobby store dune planes

What you need to know about the TX RX radio is basically get 2.4 GHz otherwise the local model aircraft club will not let you fly near them. and you need at least 6 channels and any more than 8 channels is pointless

The diydrone has a very smart and easily programmable flight controller if you want cheap and no as intelligent have a look at kkmulticopter

Today Kymberly and I had our engagement party. If you haven’t kept pace and I don’t blame you since I haven’t updated the blog. But yes, we are engaged. I asked Kym to marry me on the 16th of June, and she said yes. Romantic stories are for another blog far far away.

Anyway I really wanted to share our lovely Engagement Cake… If you know why you have an engagement cake be sure to tell me. But it kept the future mother in-law happy.

This afternoon after an interview before Easter. I was offered the job of Access Grid Support Officer working for 17000 at the University of Newcastle.

It looks like it’s going to be a great part time job while I’m at Uni.

Basics of the Job is that I’ll be running and tech support for the Universities Teleconference suite. (or Access grid) The University has 2 of these rooms both located at the top of the maths building. (one equipped with smart boards a the other a touch screen TV)

At the moment the only group using the room is the Maths department for topological groups and other distance education courses. But there are plans to open the rooms up to other departments as well as offering a commercial service to the public sector.

I’ve been told the software running the room is open source, which should be another plus.